World of Warcraft Review
By Altaeiu
Ah Azeroth, home to about 11million people world wide, making up for its own small country. Living within this small country include the 11 races of Blood elf, Night elf, Orc, Troll, human, Draenai, Gnomes, Dwarves, Tauren, The forsaken, and noob. The community of Azeroth also has many classes these diverse races can play like Rogue, Shaman, Druid, Paladin, Death knight, and retarted phrase spammer (includes the phrases "Can I get a run deadmines" and "Can I have money for spell?"). This populace resides on the three continents of Azeroth; Kalimdor, Eastern kingdoms, and Northrend along with the zone Outlands if you get tired of Azeroth and want to go on a demonic vacation. But enough chat about basics lets get to the juicy stuff.
Graphics aren't completely amazing however they've managed to stay up to date even after being around for a long time. The level design is completely amazing with its diverse terrain and color schemes. Armor is good in design however how it clings to ones character I feel needs to be worked on. Plate hanging on a person a lot like cloth makes you wonder why they bother having armor types aside from stats. Overall I'd give it an 8 out of 10 since a lot of their stuff happens to be incredibly unique in style from other mmos. It could be executed better but overall its not bad.
World of warcraft has quite a bit of lore. Its got a great storyline and incredibly rich in history and characters. However if you want this aspect of the game let me direct you to Blizzard.com to read up on Azeroth. The fact I had to tell you that defeats the purpose of playing the game itself so I've just saved you about 30 bucks. Lore is barely a main aspect of the game making levels 1-80 a complete quest grind. If you enjoy "save my cat" x10 then you'll enjoy the rich feline rescue aspect of the game.
Player versus player is great, if your not on a Pvp server. This is just my personal preference of not enjoying level 80s running up to my level 40 alts and killing them repeatedly for hours. If you have any anger management problems I highly suggest not playing on a pvp server. If you dont have anger management problems you will have them by the end of the day. Battlegrounds are always fun, I enjoy going in with my friends and killing the other side for revenge after those few weeks being ganked. Though when you go up again 5 of one class things start to get interesting. being fear locked by 5 warlocks and not being able to do anything for x amount of minutes makes me sit on my dead corpse and wonder why they allow this? On the bright side it rarely occurs and there's always Arenas. In arenas you get into a team of 2, 3, or 5 and go against the same amount of other team members and kill each other. No ganking, overpowering or anything just pure strategy and comp set up.
Gameplay is exceptional. The easy to use interface makes my gaming experience much more enjoyable due to the instantaneous use of skills and unlimited amount of skills I can use on my bars (I can use all my skills rather than just a few of them like GW). Navigating the interface is easy enough to where you dont need a manual and getting help is only a button push away!
Now for my favorite part to rant about, functionality. Every patch causes at least new 5 glitches making it hard for people at end game to raid when their boss spawns about 50 new adds. Classes tend to get changed so radically each patch people need to completely re-spec making it incredibly frustrating to anyone whos found a spec that works for them. Their instance arent working on most realms currently and its been about 4 months since they've had this problem and getting worse. Even when there isn't a new patch your character sometimes runs off in a random direction for no reason or monsters spam "target is not infront of you" when your obviously looking at it in the face". Old errors take forever to be fixed or dont get fixed at all and people can easily exploit a lot of the game (killing people in flight, warlocks teleporting with flags in pvp). If Blizzard was in a bug fixing class and had a final project it would get an F- and be kicked out of the school.
End game is what the game is about (aside from pvp) and what it does really well. It gives people a reason to get to 80 and gives them something to do after 80. Raid bosses are challenging and interesting in strategy and one of the most diverse and incredible out of most MMOS. Each boss at end game has a unique and complex strategy. If a challenge is what you like in a game then World of warcraft is the game for you!( now if only they would get them to work after they changed certain aspects about the bosses).
The community of World of Warcraft I'd have to say is a bit lacking. Most people tend to be pretty nice on my server but I've found a lot more jerks and prejudice bastards on Wow than I have on other MMOs. My friend was in a party and booted from it just because she was a girl and this has happened multiple times. I've had guild leaders who take guild banks and run, people who whine complain and loot steal. However, if you can find a decent part of the community you like and is good to you like I have you should be fine.
Overall I'd have to say World of Warcraft is decent and given far too much credit for what it actually has achieved. Its not a complete waste of 20 dollars however it isn't the best MMO on the planet. Luckily that position hasn't been filled yet and being considered part of the top 10 is an achievement in itself. Mind you everything I say is an opinion and not to be taken as offensive.
Difficulty - 7.5 - Game becomes progressively more difficult, but really more repetitive than difficult.
Story – 8.5 - Good Storyline. Kept me interested and willing to spend my time learning more about it.
Graphics – 8.0 – Excellent Graphics for being released in 2004!
Sound – 9.0 – Awesome Music.
Controls – 10.0 – Great controls! Easy to learn and master.
Replay Value – 9.0 – The game is forever expending.
Overall – 9.0 – Great game, minor flaws but nothing that cannot be overlooked
